


Finding Purgatory (In One Another)

by StarlightDreamer16



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is Thirsty, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Crowley is thirsty, First Kiss, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions, M/M, Oh yeah guys, Purgatory isn't an actual place in the story, That is more relevant in the next story, There's gonna be a next story, They're both thirsty, WAY more angst, but still notable in this one, enjoy this fluff because you will never see it again, male pronouns for both of them, non-asexual characters, the boys are just Gay and Dramatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 22:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20015992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightDreamer16/pseuds/StarlightDreamer16
Summary: Between The End Of The World and The Start Of The Rest Of Their Lives Purgatory is made up of an Angel and a Demon and six-thousand years of things that have gone unsaid.





	Finding Purgatory (In One Another)

An Angel was in Crowley’s flat.

He really shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d had the entire bus trip back from Tadfield to come to terms with what was about to happen. And yet, here he was, very much not prepared for the reality of the situation.

There was soot on Aziraphale’s cheek and creases in his coat where he stood, holding a cup of miracled tea and a book from Crowley’s tiny bookshelf. His mouth curled into the quiet smile he reserved only for his books and he stroked his fingers along the spine so delicately that a part of Crowley worried that he should perhaps have been taking better care of the book than just pulling it on a shelf and leaving it alone for 50 years. He wasn’t sure yelling at it would work quite as well as it did with his plants.

Aziraphale should have looked out of place, all soft edges and muted colours, like faded parchment, but he slot into Crowley’s home effortlessly. It was as if he was always meant to be there, surrounded by Crowley’s dark, sharp furniture and stark aesthetic. If felt like his very presence was softening the room, pulling the edges in and warping them to better fit his energy.

Crowley had never wanted anything more in his immortal life than to bundle Aziraphale up and keep him by his side for the rest of time.

“You kept it,” Aziraphale said, taking a sip from his teacup and meeting Crowley’s eyes over the rim.

It took Crowley a moment to make the connection that he was talking about the book in his hand. “It was a gift, seemed rude not to.”

Aziraphale’s gaze was heavy with something Crowley wasn’t sure how to decipher so he blinked and averted his gaze. When Aziraphale pulled the mug away from his lips, the ceramic was shaking. Crowley reached out and cupped it, and Aziraphale’s hand, between his own to steady it.

“Angel,” he whispered and then repeated louder when Aziraphale remained silent, “Angel, are you okay?”

“This is a first edition Oscar Wilde, my Dear. Did you know that?” Aziraphale held the book to his chest like a lifeline, voice frantic. “My first Oscar Wilde first edition, in fact. I gave you this in 1942, right after…”

Crowley gently untangled their hands from the mug and brought it down to rest on the bookshelf. “Aziraphale, it’s okay not to be alright. You’ve been through a lot tonight, we both have.”

His hands fumbled, as he tried to figure out what the Angel needed and came up blank. Aziraphale pressed the book into Crowley’s reaching hands and leant into his space with wide eyes.

“I gave it to you.”

“Angel,” Crowley said again, his voice saturated with concern and a touch of fear. Aziraphale had never been so close before.

“I’m alright, Crowley. The best I’ve ever been, in fact. You aren’t hearing what I’m telling you. This was my very favourite book. I gave it to my best friend to keep it safe because I knew that I could never lose him. I gave it to you.”

Crowley had called them friends before, many times, best friends even, but not Aziraphale, never Aziraphale. Crowley had never been acknowledged as more than a reluctant acquaintance of the Angel’s.

“I’m alright,” Aziraphale reassured him again. “But Crowley, my dearest, darling Crowley, it’s okay if you aren’t.”

This close, he could smell Aziraphale’s skin and make out the kaleidoscope of colours that made up his eyes and something inside Crowley snapped. He stumbled forward, the book tumbling from his grasp, but Aziraphale’s hands shot out and pulled him steady. Desperate fingers found Aziraphale’s coat in return and the whine that escaped from his throat was more animal than human.

“ _You were gone_. I couldn’t find you, couldn’t even sense you, and the books were burning and I knew you would never leave your books and I, I thought you weren’t coming back.” Crowley blinked tears out of his eyes, tasted salt on his tongue and through the blur of it, all he could make out was Aziraphale’s fathomless blue eyes staring back at him, alive alive alive. “I thought I lost you.”

“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale pulled the demon to his chest, hands spread out over his back. “You could never lose me.”

Crowley let himself burrow his face into the soft skin of Aziraphale’s neck and cry until his shoulders stopped heaving and the warmth and solidity of Aziraphale’s body sunk in. He took a breath, the heady sweet scent of Aziraphale heavy on his tongue, and pulled back to look the Angel in the eyes.

“Better, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, eyes so damn tender that Crowley almost hesitated to say what he knew had to come next.

“No. I promised myself and the bloody Almighty herself that if I ever saw you again, I would tell you everything.” Crowley paused to take in the sensations of Aziraphale’s hands against his back, of his own hands against the Angel’s chest and the almost sinful lack of distance between them. If he did this, he could lose it all. He let go and stepped back, out of Aziraphale’s grasp.

“I wasn’t in that bar, utterly shitfaced, because I lost my best friend. I was there because of the way you light up every time you pick up a book, the way you risk your life for crepes when you could just miracle them up yourself, because of that damn coat and the 180 years you’ve spent washing it by hand to ensure it stays perfect. I was there because you’re always trying to help, by making sure Shakespeare gets the sold-out theatre he wants or looking the other way when a few extra kids miraculously find room on a raft during the Great Flood. I was there because you offered a demon a wing to wait out the storm. I was in that bar because…” Crowley closed his eyes, too much of a coward to face the rejection waiting for him. “Because I lost the love of my existence, because I lost the chance to tell him what he meant to me.”

He waited in the darkness of his own mind for Aziraphale’s response. He could already half hear the gentle tenor of his voice, the delicate way he would tell him that it was still too fast, that it always would be with them. His Angel – no, not his, just the Angel – was too kind-hearted to ever let him down harshly, forever tiptoeing around with maybe’s and possibly’s and someday’s. It was a maddening sort of torture.

A touch, as gentle as a Spring breeze, so barely there that it took Crowley a moment to recognise the calloused fingertips against his skin. He opened his eyes and saw only blue. Aziraphale was so close, even closer than before, closer than Heaven allowed, his eyes burning with sincerity. His fingers were stretched out along Crowley’s jaw reaching to just below his earlobe as he cupped his face with both hands. He held Crowley’s face like the most precious of artefacts, so incredibly gentle as if he half-expected the demon to crumble at his touch. His hands were scented with ash and smoke and fear but, beneath that, parchment and ink and love and familiarity.

Crowley thought he could die happy on that scent alone.

“Crowley, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered, voice hoarse as if he were the one who had just ripped his own heart from his chest, “how could you not know?”

The emotion in Aziraphale’s gaze finally registered and – oh, he didn’t have time to unpack the density of longing, of _love_ , threaded through the layers of blue in those irises because Aziraphale was moving closer, was pulling Crowley into his space. He paused for one agonising moment, mouth so close to Crowley’s that the demon could feel the warmth of his exhale against his lips, and Crowley had never _wanted_ this hard before.

Aziraphale closed the gap. His lips were as sickeningly soft as Crowley had expected, but despite the delicate way his fingers still cradled Crowley’s face, his kisses were almost violent in their desperation. He kissed as if he had something to prove and nothing to lose, leaving Crowley breathless, with every new movement of his lips. Or it would have left Crowley breathless, if either of them needed to breathe. As it was, Crowley was panting into Aziraphale’s mouth with no real concern for his ever-shrinking lungs. He refused to give up the firm drag of Aziraphale’s mouth against his for something as mundane as oxygen.

Crowley’s back hit the wall. He was reminded of Aziraphale at the old nunnery, body firmly planted between Crowley’s own and the wall, so responsive to his actions. He considered switching their positions but then Aziraphale used the new leverage of being able to press Crowley’s body against something solid to part his lips and slip his tongue into the demon’s mouth and all thoughts of moving fled from Crowley’s mind.

Aziraphale tasted like starlight. More precisely, he tasted like the memory of holding starlight between Crowley’s fingers, surrounded by endless nothingness patiently waiting to be filled. He tasted like supernovas and galaxies and black holes.

Aziraphale tasted of Crowley’s lost angelicness; for the first time since the fall it didn’t sour on his tongue like ash.

Crowley chased the taste, meeting Aziraphale halfway and sliding his hands up from the Angel’s chest to twist around the sugar-plum curls at the nape of his neck. When Aziraphale gasped into his mouth Crowley tried to use the opportunity to pull him closer but Aziraphale pulled away, eyes blown wide and lips bruised.

He looked sinfully, sinfully ravaged, even as he tried to pull himself into semi-coherence. “Crowley, I, is this okay? Are you sure you want–”

“Angel,” Crowley whined, leaning forward to chase those wickedly talented lips, “ _please_. If you want to stop we can but–”

“I don’t want to stop.”

“Then fucking don’t.”

They re-collided with enough force that Crowley’s head would have cracked against the wall if Aziraphale’s hands hadn’t drifted up to act as a barrier. It might have been a miracle, angelic or demonic or human, that they were able to avoid a painful awkward clashing of teeth. Instead, when teeth reached out to nip at lips and skin it was with careful, overly precise intention and it was, to Crowley’s great surprise, Aziraphale who made the first bite.

And fuck if it wasn’t thrilling to watch, to feel, as his Angel tugged Crowley’s bottom lip between his teeth with a bit more force than would be pleasant for a human. But they weren’t human and despite his proclivity for humanistic tendencies Aziraphale seemed to remember that their true natures were more durable than their current shells suggested.

The moan that bubbled up from Crowley’s throat was only surprising in that it hadn’t escaped earlier. Aziraphale pulled back, a dazed look in his eyes as he stared at Crowley. The way he was looking at him reminded Crowley a bit too much of the worshipers of old, already half mad with just a glimpse of divinity.

Aziraphale brushed Crowley’s hair back, fingers lingering on the red-wine strands with enough tenderness to make Crowley long for the almost-violence of his kisses to return.

“You’re so beautiful, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured.

A part of Crowley, the part that Hell would gladly tear to shreds if they ever found it, waited for Aziraphale’s words to turn mocking, to turn cruel. When it didn’t, he slowly unfurled his heart, like a flower blossoming, petal by petal.

“I love you, Aziraphale. I always have.” People always said that telling a big truth after a long time felt like letting go, but this felt like finally stepping into his true self.

“I love you too.” Aziraphale’s face grew tormented. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realise.”

Crowley allowed himself a rare moment of genuine kindness and pressed their foreheads together. “Don’t apologise. This is enough, you are enough.” And then, because he could, he repeated, “I love you.”

“I love you.” Aziraphale leant in closer, whispering the words against Crowley’s lips like a caress. “I love you.”

“I love you” The words were half lost as Aziraphale’s lips opened against his own. Crowley said them again and again, until they were just a hum against Aziraphale’s body.

“Our own side,” Crowley mused later, his nose pressed against Aziraphale’s neck, “not Heaven or Hell, what does that leave us with?”

“Purgatory?” Aziraphale suggested, twisting a damp strand of Crowley’s hair between his fingers.

“I’d take a thousand years in Purgatory with you over a single day in Heaven or Hell alone.”

Aziraphale turned to face him properly, the sheet slipping down and revealing a constellation of freckles on a pale shoulder. “As would I, my darling. I love you.”

Crowley’s response was swallowed by Aziraphale’s lips. He didn’t mind one bit.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I hope you enjoyed this story, I'm actually working on another, longer story set after this one. It won't be as light and fluffy as this one but I needed to get the fluff out somehow so here we are.
> 
> Kudos and Comments fuel me.
> 
> Come yell at me on Tumblr @ AmeliaAdriannaBooks
> 
> xx


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